IUCN status: Near Threatened
EPBC Predator Threat Rating: Not assessed
IUCN claim: “The greatest current threat is predation by feral cats”
Cats hunted captive-bred reintroduced phascogales (Soderquist & Serena 1994).
Phascogale remained at low abundance as cat abundance declined, but no statistical analysis, control, or other variables were tested for (Wayne et al. 2017).
There are no studies linking cats to brush-tailed phascogale
population trends.
Evidence linking Phascogale tapoatafa to cats. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Phascogale tapoatafa and cats. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that cats contribute to the decline of Phascogale tapoatafa, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance. See methods section in [current submission] for details on evidence categories.
Current submission (2023) Scant evidence that introduced predators cause extinctions.
IUCN Red List. https://www.iucnredlist.org/ Accessed June 2023
Soderquist, T.R. and Serena, M., 1994. An experimental reintroduction programme for brush-tailed phascogales (Phascogale tapoatafa): the interface between captivity and the wild. In Creative Conservation: Interactive Management of Wild and Captive Animals (pp. 431-438). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Wayne, A.F., Maxwell, M.A., Ward, C.G., Wayne, J.C., Vellios, C.V. and Wilson, I.J., 2017. Recoveries and cascading declines of native mammals associated with control of an introduced predator. Journal of Mammalogy, 98(2), pp.489-501.